Less than a week since losing its star, Cowboys and Aliens may have found another – Daniel Craig is in talks to take the lead role vacated by Robert Downey Jr in the sci-fi western mash-up.

Perhaps unsurprisingly based on a graphic novel, Cowboys and Aliens is a DreamWorks project that tells the tale of Native Americans and their cowboy enemies coming together to fight off invading alien hordes in 19th-century Arizona.

The film is to be directed by Jon Favreau, who had looked set to reprise his Iron Man collaboration with Downey Jr. But the actor dropped out of the project earlier this week, amid speculation that a sequel to his current US hit, Sherlock Holmes, was in the works.

Now, reports Variety, Sherlock could be replaced by James Bond. According to the trade paper, Craig has been offered the role of the leader of the cowboys, Jake Johnson, though as the Hollywood Reporter put it, "whether Craig dons an American accent for the part remains to be seen".